Windy Children
by eumonigy
Summary: Two people who are not the same and not different at all. Eventual SquFuu.


Windy Children  
_Prologue_

xOx

Ellone covered her ears and wailed along with the screaming baby bundled in her lap.

She had never felt- or been- so alone. She had always had someone. When it hadn't been her parents, it had been Raine, and even when it hadn't been Raine, it had been Uncle Laguna.

The thought of Raine made her shake with fear again. In her short years, she had never seen so very much blood. And her dear foster mother, pale and weak, shaking, eyes unseeing, talking quickly and slowly and making no sense and scaring Ellone more than she had ever been scared.

"Ellone- the baby- no- no- I can't- Laguna! Ellone, baby, I love you, baby, sweety, I love you- Tell him- tell him I tried- tell him-"

And she continued for what was hours or minutes, she did not know. And then all was silent.

Until the baby started crying.

Ellone was very young and did not know what to do. She tried feeding him, but there were no bottles and the tiny thing could not drink from her sippy cup. She tried rocking him and singing, but her arms grew tired quickly, and her voice was raw from shock and fatigue. When nothing else worked, she sat with the baby and cried her eyes out, as the wind howled against the house as though the children's cries themselves had summoned it. She cried and cried until she couldn't cry anymore.

But the baby could.

"It's okay," she begged, sobbing dryly, "It'll be okay. Uncle Laguna will be here soon, he'll take good care of us. Raine- your mama's only sleepin', she's just tired from all that pushin'. She'll wake up soon, I swear it." The baby howled, heedless, and the wind shook the windows. "Listen to you! Stop your howling! You sound like the wind!" He eyes lit slowly in remembrance. "Yeah. Uncle Laguna read me a story once about a baby- 'Squalling like the wind' it said."

The baby went quiet, suddenly, blinking and hiccupping at her miserably.

"Is that it?" She asked, exhausted. "Do you want your name? I know your name." She tucked the blankets around the infant as it sniffled and began to fall into a whimpering slumber.

Kissing his tear stained cheek, the wind dying down, she whispered, "I know your name, Squall."

---

Ellone could not have known, and neither could the tiny Squall, that half a world away, another infant wailed like the wind.

"What do you mean my wife is dead?" The man asked, his dark eyes, usually brimming with kindness and warmth, now cold and hard.

"I'm sorry, sir," said the doctor, wiping his hands solemnly. "It was two much for her. Seven was too much."

Yes, seven children. Their eldest son was just ten, and their youngest two, twin girls, were just turning one. The three between were all girls. All of the children were rosy cheeked and healthy and happy.

Not this new one.

It screamed its lungs out as loud as it could, storming and crying, wailing and thrashing. It was pale and crimson eyed, and the tufts of hair growing out of its head were steely gray.

As he watched his six children, all of whom, including the two youngest held by the two oldest, stared in horror and despair from the doorway.

"Mother…" Bella said, her eyes watering, "What's happened to mother?"

He closed his eyes in pain, drowning in the horrible screaming of the infant. He didn't know what to do.

"There, there child," came the soothing voice of Nana Mathias, the children's devoted caregiver. "Shh, it's alright."

He opened his eyes, expecting to see the plump woman stroking Bella's soft golden hair. But she wasn't in the doorway with the children. He turned and found her leaning over the white cradle, over _it_.

"Now, now. Listen to you, squalling like the wind." She had reached her arms in and pulled it out, and he was suddenly enflamed with rage.

"_Don't._"

The woman looked up, shocked. "What?"

"I said don't," he replied coldly.

She was shocked. "But, Master Marquise…"

"I said don't! Don't touch _it_!" He roared back. Startled, she dropped it back into its blankets.

Something inside the man broke without warning. Like a dam crumbling away, all of his rational and logic were suddenly very gone. He was left with a flood of rage.

_Evil._ He stalked forward, towards _it. Evil, it's evil._

Nana Mathias looked frightened. "M-Master Marquise, w-what are you doing?"

"_Evil_," he hissed, "It's _evil_."

The nanny tried to position her body between him and cradle. "No! Master Marquise! She's only a baby!"

"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" he screamed, knocking her to the side. She stumbled, and her head hit the ground with a sharp crack. Bella gave a soft scream from the doorway.

"D-Don," the doctor trembled, "Don, calm down!"

He did not calm, but instead was incited, and he picked up his fist and punched the doctor, whom he had known all his life, right in the face. The man's nose exploded in blood and he fell, cowering, to the floor.

"_Evil_," he said, eyes wild, "_It's evil_."

He roughly seized the bundle, and flew past his children, who scattered in fear, and then, regaining their wits, rushed after the man. The man rushed out of his expansive mansion, into the howling wind, into the towering trees of the forest.

He stopped some ways in, placing the baby on the forest floor. It wailed again as the wind screamed and threw debris everywhere.

He raised his booted foot with madness gleaming in his eyes.

"_Papa_!" Came the shrill cry. Startled, he swayed, before putting his foot back down and turning. Bella stood forward of the rest, her eyes pleading. Markus, his eldest, kept the smaller children at bay with horror etched into his face. Bella called again. "Papa! Don't! Papa, leave it, leave it there, come away from it!"

And the younger children's cries melted into hers, though Markus remained silent. "Papa! Papa! We need you, Papa! Please, Papa, we need you!"

He looked at his children, and then at the screaming infant, and then back to his children. Finally, he took a step towards, them, much to their relief. He walked towards them and began pushing them back towards the house. All of them obeyed except Markus. The boy started towards his baby sister, but a sharp voice, his father's voice, called him back. Anger was shuttering to life in the man's eyes again. Terrified to set the man off again, Markus hurried toward the house, guilt blooming in his gut as he looked back over his shoulder at the scared baby.

---

It was some time later that a woodsman named Mizuni heard the wailing of the child, and, shouldering his axe, he hurried toward it.

What he found was a tired, hungry newborn infant, blood running down one side of her face. The wind rushed over head as he picked up the baby, cradling it in his arms. Looking closely at the wound in her eye, he knew some of the flying junk must of hit the poor thing. Without waiting another moment, he began in the direction of the house his shared with his wife.

"There, there, my poor thing," he soothed, "I'll have you fed real soon, and we'll take care of that eye. Oh, you poor thing, who would do this to you? Listen to you, screaming like the wind- not that you don't have every right to, my poor thing. That's it- just like the wind. _Fuu_. You'll be my little Fuu."

The baby continued to cry piteously, it's wail traveling far and wide of the forest.

It was very unfortunate that Don Marquise awoke that morning with his sanity restored. He rushed out the door, past a silent, stony Mathias, past his staring children. "What have I done?"

All he found where he had left the baby were traces of blood.

"_What have I done!_" he screamed at the sky.

Not too many miles away from the tormented father, a happy gurgling baby listened to the wind blow outside her new cabin home.

---tbc---


End file.
